Taking Refuge from the Heat ...

... in a cinema is a good idea. Meeting our friends to see Revolutionary Road at 4.45 was also a good idea, as were the iced drinks and ice creams we devoured. And given that a bit of a cool change arrived while we were inside, our timing was also perfect. The only problem was the enormous blackout that plunged the cinema into silent darkness about ten minutes before the end of the movie, just after Leonardo has eaten his scrambled eggs.

But people were pretty calm and resigned. We picked up our refund (not that it was really the cinema's fault), argued about the possible endings on the way home, then sat outside in the breeze, drank home-made ginger beer, then some Little Creatures, then some sauvignon blanc, and then, with pizza, because it was Friday night, a little cabernet merlot as well. We played Scrabble in three teams, but were too lazy to move around the table, so it was the two fathers, a mother and a goddaughter, and a mother and a godson. Much hilarity. But I hate the new little book of stupid Scrabble words like Qi, whose meaning no one can ever remember. But worse, my brain was so addled by the heat I only realised three moves later that IQ is an abbreviation, and therefore not allowed. Rats!

When our friends had gone, we moved in on the Verdasco-Nadal match, coming in at the third set, and staying on till the end. It was completely and utterly absorbing, to see each player pushing and extending each other, each with immense respect for each other's game. And now there's an additional thrill to any such event: will the power hold out till the end of the match? Either at Rod Laver arena, or on our little bit of the grid? I turned off every single light in the house, while we were outside...

Admittedly, these are exceptional circumstances: the hottest week on record for Melbourne. But it does seem as if the infrastructure is very fragile indeed. Refrigeration, trains, power are all vulnerable. And what is worst of all: it's our children who are really going to bear the brunt of climate change and failing systems in twenty or thirty years time. And it will be our fault.

Monday Melbourne Medievalism Blogging (4) The Wide Brown Land

Today is Australia Day. Recent custom suggests we are supposed to be having a barbeque to celebrate, though we had one last night, and called in the neighbours at the last minute, only to remember that Dokic was playing in the fourth round. Andy (Alan's temporary tenant) and Sophie (Alan's friend) don't follow the tennis, but Alan came in and watched the end of the first set with us. I was thrilled to see her win in three hard-fought sets, appalled to see the replays of her rolling over on her ankle at 7-6 in the third, but equally appalled at the crowd who lost its composure in the last game and cheered when Klebanova missed her serve, then equally loudly shooshed each other (itself, I guess). Given she played her best points to echoing silence from a packed arena, I thought the Russian showed a remarkable temperament, but I'm just so impressed with Dokic's composure and concentration. According to the press in Serbia who have hunted him down, her father is threatening to come to Melbourne if she makes the final. Judging from the crowd support, I think Australians would link arms at the immigration desk to stop him coming in and messing with her head again.

Today's medievalism is a bit oblique. I was listening to the radio while making coffee before (I'm reading drafts of ARC applications today; and a girl needs a break now and then), and they were taking talkback on the moment listeners came to love their country, and one woman recounted an experience I have had many times. She was flying to Alice Springs and looked out the window to see the vast expanses of red beneath her, and realised she loved her home. How many times have I climbed aboard a plane in a cold London night and fallen asleep to wake at 4 in the morning and look out to see a pale blue sky over the reddening rosy expanses beneath me. You go for hours, looking down, and barely seeing a road or a light. The wide brown land, indeed.

Why is this medievalist? Angela Catterns on the radio replied to this woman, and said, yes, it was a spiritual experience, like going into one of the great cathedrals in Europe. And there it was: the direct and easy equivalence between medieval spiritual heritage and the sacredness of land. Or home. This is, of course, quite different from indigenous notion of sacredness and custodianship. But in the sense that this vision of the red heart of the country takes your heart and soul into a different place, it's interesting to me that the analogy for this lifting out of the self is drawn from the medieval European past.

And a partridge, etc.

I don't want this to sound like a rehearsal for my annual performance appraisal (coming up in January), but since, like everyone else, I have worked to the point of exhaustion this year (damn! and I really meant not to), I thought it was time for a kind of reckoning. So here goes:

Number of articles published: 1.5 (already below the recommended level, because of a delay in a journal that was meant to be out before Christmas).

Number of articles (extra ones) finished or finalised this year: 3 (the last one sent off, to meet the deadline, last Friday: phew!)

Number of chapters written on the Garter book: 1 (completely from scratch, and pretty much polished: it's my favourite so far, and is called "Dressing Up")

Number of extra bits and pieces written on the Medievalism book with Tom: a few (must start turning these into chapters now)

Number of conference and seminar papers delivered: 7 (Melbourne, Perth, Leeds, Swansea, Riverside, Melbourne, Hobart [and only one of these was a partial repeat of one other])

Number of public lectures given: 2 (Heraldry Society and Friends of Baillieu; Lyceum Club)

Number of PhD students successfully being confirmed: 3 (congratulations to Anne, Anne and Duncan)

Number of MA students getting their results: 1 (congratulations to HerOverThere, recently sighted buying coffee at Baretto's)

Number of PhDs waiting to be examined for other universities: 2 (will be on to them straight after Christmas)

Number of plane trips: 2 international; 6 domestic (inside US and Australia). Very bad for carbon emissions: am about to be promoted back up from Bronze to Silver frequent flyer.

Number of teaching awards: 2 (ahem)

Number of literary awards and scholarships judged: 2 (plus 1 more to go over the break)

Number of resolutions about email and internet use broken: countless

Number of days missed morning walk: growing

Number of "Sing Your Own Operas" with Richard Gill and Opera Victoria: 2 (as of yesterday: a blissful Messiah with four friends. Head still ringing from the high A's: feel sorry for those sitting next to me).

Number of Christmas puddings made: 3

Number of Christmas trees decorated: 1 (just as soon as I post this blog post)

Sum total of weight gained and lost: 0 (which, given the combination of one's medication and one's time of life, is No Mean Achievement)

Number of doses of Tamoxifen: 365 (didn't miss one, even when travelling)

Improvement in topspin backhand: 100% (especially since last week, when I had a whole lesson with Larry on my own, and when he told me in some respects it was better than Paul's, after which I promptly sent the next six into the net).

Other statistics (difficult meetings attended; jobs at risk; curriculum reviews) are too depressing and confusing. And in any case, I'm trying to resist the way our Faculty now just counts everything. And besides, it's Christmas. Or the holidays. Or the end of the year. So it's time to let go of all the counting. I'm still "on deck" at work, with the exception of the Christmas break, till the end of January, when my eleven months of leave (sabbatical plus long service plus annual: not that I'm counting) begin. But right now I'm going to put up the Christmas tree, clean up my desk, and head up to the tennis courts to work on my backhand.

Doing Things in Groups

If you had asked me, say, four years ago, whether I preferred doing things in groups, or on my own, I would have answered resoundingly with a preference for the latter. Exercise, research and singing would have been three obvious categories for me where solitude was the preferable state.

But over the last few years, I have come to see the fun of working and teaching collaboratively. I still prefer to walk or run (in the rare intervals when I have calves and ankles that will sustain such activity) or swim on my own: that kind of exercise is meditative for me. But now that I am getting stronger at tennis, I am starting to enjoy the communality of playing doubles.

These days, I'm working on three big research projects. One, the book on the Order of the Garter, is a solitary project. I've just finished a draft of Chapter Five (yay me!). Another is a co-authored book and related projects on theories of medievalism with Tom. The third is our collaborative project on Australian medievalism: I love this team, and working with Louise, Andrew and John, and also Toby and Anne. I'm also thinking about cooking up another international collaboration on the teaching of medieval studies and medievalism...

Today, too, I took part in three joyous group activities.

First up, the Middle English reading group. We are reading Havelok the Dane, for an hour, every fortnight. It's hysterical and fun, even on days, like today, when I've been too busy to do any preparation. Anyone in Melbourne want to join in? Email me.

Second, we held the first of our methodology workshops for research students. Now that the old Department of English has become part of the new School of Culture and Communication, our students are part of an enormous cohort that straddles "English", Theatre, Creative Writing, Cultural Studies, Publishing, Media and Communication, Art History, Arts Management, Cinema Studies and parts of the old School of Creative Arts. So when we hold School-based "work in progress" days for students, they are talking into a ferociously interdisciplinary context. And while that's tremendously interesting, there was the danger of losing a degree of focus, so we have decided to hold regular methodology workshops for graduate students in English, Creative Writing and Publishing, and today's was the first. It was wonderful to have two terrific presentations from John and Anne, PhD students approaching the first major hurdle — confirmation — of their candidature. Heaps of people turned up: perhaps 25? People concentrating hard, thinking and talking and asking and answering questions, with a tremendous spirit of collegiality and co-operation. Really, an ideal example of supportive and collegial work. Frankly, I was unspeakably proud of our students.

Third, our weekly tennis fixture. I play with a group of women from this newly aggregated school, plus the partner of one of our male colleagues, plus a woman from another school who's just come through the fiery trials of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and is grapping with the rigours of hormone therapy. And sometimes Joel comes along, as he did today. The poor boy is still sick. He nearly made it to school today, but couldn't in the end get up from the breakfast table to get dressed. But he dragged his aching knees and his barking cough onto the court this afternoon and had about a fifteen-minute hit with me and Denise. We all love our tennis. You might look at us and think we are very uneven, and not all that good, often, and mock us for not being able, or not caring enough, to keep score properly, but you could not dispute the pleasure we serve up (!) to each other. Even Joel caught the spirit and was cheerfully talking about going back to school tomorrow (he's missed 7 days, which is a lot for a thirteen-year-old).

So... groups? I'm converted!

But what's missing from this picture? "Exercise, research and singing..." I wonder, could I really find a choir to join???

Three Days: Three Clubs

It's becoming increasingly clear to me why I am fascinated by the Order of the Garter; it's really another way to think about institutions and rituals of belonging, topics that have always intrigued me. Over the last three days I've done three very different things with three different clubs, though I belong to none of them. Theoretically, I could join all three...

On Friday night we were guests of a friend at the Lyceum Club in Melbourne. The Club was founded in 1912 to link with the Lyceum club in London and others, and as resistance to the (still) exclusively masculine Melbourne Club. "Membership is restricted to women graduates and other women who had distinguished themselves in art, music, literature, philanthropy or public service." The building is hidden down a dark laneway behind the back of the Melbourne Club's secret garden, and from our charming private upstairs room we looked into the leaves of the enormous plane trees and down into its courtyard. I had passed the grand facade of the Melbourne Club in Collins St a thousand times and had no idea of this beautiful space hidden away in the heart of the city. There is a discreet doorway from the Club into the laneway, and rumour has it that this provided a quick route to a brothel that used to occupy the spot where the Lyceum now stands (there may still be one not too far away). The Lyceum is rather more modest as a building, but has a wonderful art collection, and changing exhibitions of photographs and artworks. We had a lovely meal (a "Lebanese grazing banquet", far from the roast beef and three vegies I was half expecting), and the twelve of us sat around a circular table with Vicki’s family and friends and talked in groups of two or three, or occasionally someone would tell a story to the whole group. What a luxury, to be able to eat and talk without the clatter of other tables, or "restaurant" music.

On Saturday night, we went with 63,000 other folk to the “dreamtime” clash between Richmond and Essendon at the MCG. Once a year these two AFL clubs, who’ve both been actively supportive of Indigenous players, meet to commemorate the brilliant talents of Aboriginal footballers. In particular, my team, the mighty Bombers, under the coaching of Kevin Sheedy, have pushed for this event to become a regular fixture, and so we joined the small crowd that followed Michael Long (being interviewed here by Michael Voss),



from Federation Square to the beautiful MCG.




I went down to the barrier at the edge of the ground and took a few photos as Richmond were warming up; for some reason, I also seem to have caught mostly Richmond supporters in my snaps.








The MCG wasn’t full, but by the time the pre-match ceremonies began it was about two-thirds full. A didgeridoo player, wrapped in a beautiful possum skin cloak, stood above the electronic scoreboard, right at the very top of the ground, and then we heard Archie Roach, Shane Howard, Ivor Davies and others sing the immortal words, “It’s the colour of your jumper; it’s not the colour of your skin.” I do not think it likely that this is going to become one of the all-time great football anthems. Then Peter Garrett (ex-rock star, now politician) joined a bunch of others to sing along with Shane Howard’s “Solid Rock (standing on sacred ground)”, Auntie Joy Murphy welcomed everyone to country as the Wurundjeri elder, presenting manna leaves to the captain and coach of each club; and the game began. It was not a great game (not that I go very often), and by three-quarter time it looked as if the Tigers were going to score their first win of the season. We left, weak-spiritedly, to avoid the crush on the train, but when we got home and got in the car to drive Joel’s friend Nick home, scores were level at the end of the match, and then Essendon sneaked home by 8 points. Go Bombers!

The third club, much more modestly, was the suburban tennis club where Larry coaches on Sundays. It’s the only sport I play, and I don’t really play, yet, as I’m still learning, but it’s always fun to get out on the court and have a turn. It’s possibly almost time for me to join a club, though, and to see about playing a game. Today, though, we were practising volleying up close to the net (and sitting on a chair, to make us focus on our raquet work, not our footwork), and I got hit by a ball right between nose and upper lip. Ouch. I’m expecting a big bruise tomorrow, and have felt headachey all day, as if my poor brain got a knock, too. So much so that I had to lie on the couch most of the afternoon and read a novel. Oh well. There’s always tomorrow, for working.